


Pain, Misery, Agony (Synonyms for Afghanistan)

by Avengerz



Series: Family 'Verse [2]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Black Panther (Comics), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Afghanistan, Angst, Dad!T'Challa, Dad!Tony, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Iron Man 1, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7302685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avengerz/pseuds/Avengerz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Yinsen asks him if he has any family, and Tony stares hard into the fire.</i>
  <br/>
  <i></i>
  <br/>
  <b>Nuru’s awe as she watches the Dora Milaje train, her hand impossibly small in his. Sipho’s quiet smiles and the cookie he shares with Tony. Adannaya’s happy gurgle, tiny fingers reaching for a mobile of plastic wrenches and bolts.</b>
  <br/>
  <i></i>
  <br/>
  <b>T’Challa’s laugh, his smile, his arms that wrap around Tony and make him feel safe and loved in a way he’s never been before.</b>
  <br/>
  <i></i>
  <br/>
  <i>"Yes,” he says, hard and rough the way he has to be to survive in a place like this. “And I’m going to see them again.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain, Misery, Agony (Synonyms for Afghanistan)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notanightlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notanightlight/gifts).



> Back by (shockingly) popular demand, it's the family 'verse! Part one was originally written for a prompt on [ImagineIronPanther](http://imagineironpanther.tumblr.com), but this sequel is just because I wanted to write it.
> 
> Part one is probably necessary to understand what's going on in this fic.
> 
> Dedicated to [notanightlight](http://notanightlight.tumblr.com) for being such a great fan and inspiration! :D

Tony hugs his children goodbye in the morning, tickles Nuru until she laughs out her surrender, tucks Sipho under his arm as the boy shows him his latest drawings, presses a kiss to the top of Adannaya’s head. He kisses T’Challa before he has to leave, a quick peck on the lips. They’re absent, quick embraces, sure in the knowledge that he’ll be back in just a few hours to see them again.

Hours later, as Tony stares in mute horror at a bomb with his name on it, a text to T’Challa half finished in his hands, he’ll wish he had known to hold them longer.

* * *

 

Afghanistan is hell. Afghanistan is blazing days and frigid nights, a hand in his chest and water in his lungs, painful realizations and a constant terror that haunts his every move. It’s the thud of his aching heart in his ears, a constant pulse: _survive, survive, survive._

 

Yinsen asks him if he has any family, and Tony stares hard into the fire.

 

_Nuru’s awe as she watches the Dora Milaje train, her hand impossibly small in his. Sipho’s quiet smiles and the cookie he shares with Tony. Adannaya’s happy gurgle, tiny fingers reaching for a mobile of plastic wrenches and bolts._

 

_T’Challa’s laugh, his smile, his arms that wrap around Tony and make him feel safe and loved in a way he’s never been before._

 

“Yes,” he says, hard and rough the way he has to be to survive in a place like this. “And I’m going to see them again, too.”

 

Yinsen only nods.

 

* * *

 

Tony rebuilds himself from fire and ash, from beaten metal and a cool blue light. He rebuilds himself from a sacrifice and a prayer and a promise to change things. He rebuilds himself, and he wanders the desert for nearly two days before they find him.

 

He’s starting to hallucinate, a little, can’t trust what his own eyes are telling him. It’s Rhodey, not T’Challa, that runs up to him, but that’s good too, that’s great. Tony collapses to his knees and leans into the solid embrace of the man who’s stood by him since he was a smart-mouthed punk in MIT and shakes with tears he’s too dehydrated to shed.

 

* * *

 

Tony sits in a daze for most of the ride back to the military base Rhodey’s been working out of, the steady sound of the copter blades and the bottle of water in his hands his only true realities.

 

He has to ask Rhodey if this is really happening, if he’s really free. Rhodey just stares at him for a moment with an expression of pure devastation before pulling him into his arms again. “Yes,” he murmurs into Tony’s filthy hair. “Yes, you’re free. I’m here, Tones. T’Challa’s waiting at the base. You’re free.”

 

It’s relatively dark in the helicopter, and Tony squints as he stumbles out of it, eyes hypersensitive after thirty-eight hours in the blinding desert. He’s blinking, trying to adjust to this new reality of asphalt under his feet and Americans barking out orders all around him, when a body collides with his. He strangles a scream in his throat, stumbling backwards and looking around wildly for this new attacker.

 

“ _Tata,_ ” the distressed cry is achingly familiar, and Tony looks down, wide-eyed, at Nuru. Her cheeks are stained with tear tracks, her eyes red and puffy, and she’s the most beautiful thing Tony has ever seen. She stares up at him, confused and scared, and Tony collapses to his knees on hard concrete.

 

“Nuru,” he gasps out, barely above a whisper. It’s permission, though, and Nuru runs forward again, practically leaping into his outstretched arms. Tony clutches her close, relishing in the brush of her hair against his chin, the pull of her small hands clenched in his shirt, the warmth of her against him.  “Oh, _mabhebeza,_ ” he murmurs. She sniffles and doesn’t protest being called a baby, and that’s how Tony knows how distraught she is.

 

Another body collides with their little huddle, smaller and trailing tears behind him, and Tony reaches out for him. “Sipho! Come here sweetheart, come here, oh jesus, oh, I missed you.” His shirt is quickly becoming soaked with their combined tears and they’re pressing uncomfortably against the still raw wound in his chest, but Tony can’t bring himself to give a single shit.

 

“Daddy,” Sipho says, choked with tears, and Tony remembers that he’s three now, that he missed his birthday, and he pulls the boy even closer to himself.

 

Then there’s footsteps running towards them, a strangled “ _uthando,”_ and Tony carefully extricates himself from his children (he’d rather die than hurt them, and he tries to ignore how much he already has). Then there’s arms around him, familiar with something like _home_ and Tony clutches at the back of T’Challa’s shirt and drops his head into the corner of his neck and sobs.

 

“ _Ndiyakuthanda nam,_ _Sithandwa.”_ T’Challa mumbles into Tony’s hair, and he gets the feeling that despite being completely fluent in the language, English is beyond his husband’s capabilities at the moment.

 

“I missed you, too,” he whispers back, and the words are inadequate, not nearly enough to voice the constant heartache he’s lived with for three months.

 

T’Challa shakes with a silent sob and pulls him closer.

 

* * *

 

At some point they’re directed into a private room, which Tony is distantly grateful for. Neither he nor T’Challa are usually big fans of PDA, and he’s vaguely resentful that anyone and their mother had witness to a moment as intimate as their reunion. An underling leaves to fetch Adannaya from the nursery she’d been staying at, and terror grips at Tony. He’s been gone so long, and Ada’s still so young, what if she doesn’t even recognize him? He clutches tightly at T’Challa’s hand as a nurse carries her in.

 

His fears are unfounded. The nurse gently sets her in Tony’s arms and for a moment it’s like that very first day at the adoption agency, Ada only a few days old and blinking sleepily at a world that Tony swears to keep safe for her.

 

She blinks up at him again now, and she’s heavier and has more hair and _god_ she’s probably started crawling, Tony’s missed so much, but then she grins up at Tony, giggles, reaches to grab at his untamely beard, and it should be physically impossible for Tony to cry any more, but somehow he manages.

 

T’Challa wraps an arm around him from behind, Nuru and Sipho both choose a leg to cling to, and Tony finally settles into the idea that things might be okay again.

 

* * *

 

It takes the combined efforts of Rhodey and T’Challa to convince Tony to relent to the base doctor’s insistence that he report to medical for a check up. He requests that it be done in private, without even his family for company, and he can tell that the request hurts T’Challa, he’s not ready to reveal to his husband the new level of fucked-up he’s reached over the last few months.

 

The doctor balks at the hunk of metal inside Tony’s chest, rightfully so, and Tony spends an exhausting half hour trying to convince her that it’s keeping him alive without going into too much detail about how it works. The world doesn’t need to know about the kind of power the arc reactor could provide, not yet.

 

Tony's tired of accidentally hurting people.

 

Finally she leaves him with some medicine for the lingering effects of the infection in his chest and an order to take it easy and drink a lot of water. Toy just nods tiredly and buttons up the new shirt they've provided him with.

 

There’s a quiet knock on the door. “Come in,” he calls, voice still hoarse. T’Challa steps in.

 

“ _Unjani?_ ” His voice is soft, gentle, but Tony’s too tired to be annoyed at the patronization. He’s just tired. T’Challa sits on the thin hospital mattress next to him, and Tony leans into him, sighing out tension he hadn’t noticed carrying.

 

“I’m… fine.”

 

T’Challa just looks at him.

 

Tony sighs again and scrubs a hand over his face. “I’ll be fine. Physically, I’m alright, besides this newest addition.” He taps lightly at the arc reactor. T’Challa’s obviously desperately curious about it, has been since he first hugged Tony and felt the edge of the metal circle, but he doesn’t ask. He respects that there’s some things that Tony’s not quite ready to share yet, and Tony loves him all the more for it.

 

“Those terrorists had my weapons.” Tony turns his face into T’Challa’s shoulder, can’t meet his husband’s eyes. “They had- those people were using my inventions to attack and kill innocent people, and I didn’t even know about it.” Tony’s been too lax. He’s trusted Obadiah with the running of the company, too focused on maintaining his alcoholic playboy reputation in the states and spending time with his family to care about what happened to his weapons.

 

Tony could never, would never, blame T’Challa and the kids for taking up his attention. This one’s on him. What kind of man creates death machines like he does and doesn’t even pay attention to where they end up?

 

“Things have to change,” he says, voice thick with emotion he can’t name. “I can’t- people died because of me, because of my inventions. I can’t allow that. I’m going to shut down SI’s weapon development.”

 

For a moment, T’Challa is silent, and Tony waits breathlessly for his opinion, for condemnation, for absolution. “I think you are making the right choice,” he says finally, and Tony relaxes into his arms once more. “Stark Industries can turn its attention to other technology. I know you had plans for a prosthesis line, and you can expand the mobile and tablet department. Not very many jobs would even be lost.”

 

“Yeah,” Tony says, relieved beyond words. “Yeah, exactly.”

 

He feels the light press of T’Challa’s lips against his temple. “We will find out who is responsible, _Ubutyebi,_ ” he murmurs, a dark promise, “and we will make it right.”

 

Tony nods, suddenly tired. He’s safe, now, with T’Challa’s arms around him and a promise for change in the future, and the exhaustion he’s been holding at bay with sheer willpower is crashing over him.

 

He looks up at the sound of the door opening and smiles to see Nuru and Sipho shuffling in. “Hey kiddos,” he says quietly, and they clamber up onto the bed next to him.

 

“You’re not allowed to leave again, daddy,” Nuru says, imperious and desperate. Sipho nods his silent agreement, bottom lip quivering.

 

Tony leans away from T’Challa to pull them into his arms. “I won’t,” he says, quiet and fierce. “I promise.” There’s much to be done in the next couple months, an investigation to be held and weapon caches to be destroyed. It’s tiring to even contemplate, but one thing he knows for sure: he’s going to make this world a safer place for his children.

**Author's Note:**

> Italicized words are Xhosa, which MCU is using as the language of Wakanda. My translations are probably (definitely) off, because I'm using some pretty sketchy dictionaries, but at least I tried. (Shoutout to iviwe for attempting to teach my ignorant american ass.)
> 
> Tata: father  
> Mabhebeza: baby  
> Ndiyakuthanda nam, sithandwa: I missed you, love  
> Unjani?: How are you?  
> Ubutyebi: treasure
> 
> You can find more IronPanther at our new [ImagineIronPanther blog](http://imagineironpanther.tumblr.com) or find me on my [tumblr.](http://anthonyfuckingstark.tumblr.com)
> 
> Comments are absolutely adored (I need that Validation™)


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